1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to emollient iodophor formulations and more particularly to non-aqueous emollient iodophor formulations that are particularly useful in the healthcare profession.
2. Description of Related Art
Hand washing by healthcare professionals is an essential component of infection control activities. Healthcare professionals attending to patient care wash their hands to control the spread of infection from patient to patient. Surgical procedures are routinely proceeded by surgical hand scrubbing and patient pre-operative skin prepping.
Hand washing procedures are performed in several ways. Several procedures include products such as an ordinary antimicrobial bar soap, a skin disinfecting or pre-operative prepping agent or rubbing alcohol. Such procedures and products contain antimicrobial agents such as iodine, chlorhexidine gluconate, para-chlorometa-xylenol and hexachlorophenes. The use of these procedures and products repeatedly is hard and rough on skin.
An alcohol solution containing a tincture of iodine, is also recognized to be an effective disinfecting agent. Tincture of Iodine USP contains from about 1.8% to about 2.2% iodine in 50% ethyl alcohol, 50% water and about 2.1% to about 2.6% of sodium iodide. This particular solution causes irritation to the skin and a routine application of this solution for disinfection may cause burn to the skin. To avoid such irritation, organic complexing agents such as polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), surfactants and starches are used in the solution to complex with the iodine to release iodine on demand thereby reducing the risk of irritation and iodine burn on the skin. The organic-iodine complexes are known as iodophors. Most iodine containing surgical scrubs and preps are formulated by using PVP and surfactant iodine complexed iodophors.
Various publications disclose iodophor compositions. Such publications include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,235,446; 4,017,407; 4,873,354; 4,271,149; 4,113,857; 4,597,975; 5,000,749 and 5,180,061.
Since iodine is a known irritant to the skin and some persons are sensitive to iodine, repeated application of products containing iodine to the skin is not desirable. Irritation includes rashes, dryness and redness. Since the tolerance of such products containing iodine is low, formulations such as antimicrobial soaps and alcohol scrubs comprising hexachlorophene and chlorhexidine gluconate may be used instead. However, due to the broad spectrum of disinfecting properties of iodophor compositions, there is a need for an emollient iodophor surgical scrub to provide protection to the skin from the harsh attack of iodine.